you're hearing damage
by Masquerading with Shadows
Summary: How many deaths to start a rebellion? / Winner for Starvation's April oneshot challenge.


**A/N: Note: this deliberately has no specific time indicators; that's up to you. This was originally written for Starvation's April prompt "inescapable" but I'm not sure if I'll use it. Any comments are welcome. Please also note that this is my first Hunger Games piece.  
**

**The title comes from Thom Yorke's "Hearing Damage" - think listening to static.**

* * *

The victor's village in District 3 is hidden from the rest of the district, cowering behind large, humming factories, the noise of the machinery reverberating off each of the houses. The most obvious thing that sets them apart from the rest of the houses is the colour of them; a soft, electric blue the same colour of fire against metal that glows amongst the colours of steel and copper. He's been here less than a year and already it drives him insane.

Next come the steady, rhythmic sounds that can be heard all across the region. Ideally, the houses are supposed to block them out (along with the victors' screams), but the construction of every database and circuit wiring, the sound of the bell signifying the end of a shift, are so deeply embedded into his brain that he finds his hands, pale and hard and scarred instead of calloused and nimble, plaiting and twisting imaginary cables, ready to connect to power.

He spends most of his nights like this anyway: grasping at air, trying to solve a puzzle with no pieces and looking for the bigger picture. He opens his eyes at the sun shines in his eyes, and for a moment he convinces himself that he's created light out of nothing.

.

He finds himself to be surprisingly bored in the months following the Hunger Games, and that makes his chest feel even more hollow than it already is, so he starts to build. At first, it's simple stuff like buying a computer from the Capitol (and yes, he's completely aware of just how ironic that is) and rewiring it so that it becomes ten times more powerful than its original. This is followed by an enhanced kitchen and TV, though come the next games he knows he'll regret it.

Then, he builds a security system around his house, complete with electric wiring and the occasional landmine trigger. The one or two victor left that is brave enough still to venture outside their own home shakes their head at him, going back inside to close shutters and trap themselves in corners, rocking back and forth to the beat of a clock, or a bomb.

_Tick, tock. _

Later that night, he sits on his couch and half wishes that something could put just the right amount of pressure in that single spot. He closes his eyes, feels the burn on his back, and breathes. Holds it. Blue faces return to crowd in his vision and he opens them, his mouth letting a gasp escape. He searches for the box of liquor that he's sure was his welcoming gift to the house and breaks the cap open, drinking as he watches the TV screen in front of him. Hunger Games, again. That's all that's ever on.

The next thing he knows he's on the his computer, fingers moving as quickly as they can across the keyboard. He feels acid in his throat, hears screams ringing in his ears, numbers and words and last breaths moving across his eyes. He doesn't want to save them or forget them, he just wants to end it all. One more and – electricity travels up his fingers, into his spine and he smells smoke. The computer goes blank.

.

The President sends him a message:

_I wouldn't try breaking into our system again soon, Cearda, unless you'd like to stay at the Capitol for a while. _

He rips the computer apart, throws each piece at the wall, and tears down his TV. He wonders if he can find the cameras that have been burning into his back ever since he arrived; any influence of the Capitol, he wants gone.

He looks down at his hands and sees that they're once again covered in blood.

.

Days, weeks, months, he doesn't know. Everything goes by in a haze of drugs and alcohol and the games being repeated over and over again, from where he doesn't know. It doesn't matter though, anyway. He smiles a bit when he thinks of all the strategies every other tribute could have used and he still manages to win (and he's still got liquor in the fridge so he assumes he hasn't lost to the Capitol yet either).

It's annoying though, those lights outside from the other houses, blue and eerie on his bedroom ceiling. He can't even see the stars and the moon from the steam and fumes that seep out of the factories. He misses that.

So he closes his windows and his curtains until it's completely dark, and he works. He doesn't know for how long, but he has food and water – he smirks, maybe even snorts a little – he can survive. _Obviously_. The only time he goes outside is to collect parcels from the Capitol, delivered by Peacekeepers who frown at his pale skin and bloodshot eyes and perhaps even pity him. A curt nod is all he gives them.

Finally, it's finished: an almost exact replica of the arena's weather system, only on a smaller scale. He grins at it, watching the sun glow bright orange to fade into deep blue. The stars come out, one by one, and the moons smiles down at him. He falls asleep, almost safe, almost peaceful, feeling in control.

(It's possible that after the Victor's tour, he'll come back and almost call this place home. Maybe even say he missed it. He shivers unexplainably, running a hand through his newly cut and purple dyed hair.)

.

The anniversary of the Hunger Games leaves his stomach empty and tumultuous and presses his liver into his diaphragm and his hands to side of the toilet seat. He vomits blood and it splatters everywhere.

The train ride to the Capitol is long and his tributes are silent.

His voice is thick and slurred when he talks to them. Vaguely, he recalls telling them to act on their strengths and knowledge, to look at the contraptions the game makers put in and find a way to use them. He looks at them, wide-eyed and young and he wonders if he ever looked like that (if he ever looked _innocent_ because he certainly can't remember the last time he felt it – last time he felt like anything other than weighed down by the weight on his shoulders). He sends them to bed and realises he doesn't even know their names.

Later that night he sneaks into a bar to get a stronger drink and finds a District 1 mentor there as well, his arms scarred and his knuckles cracked. They look at each other, grim looks on each of their faces, and he's just about to walk off with his drink when he mutters,

"May the odds –"

"I didn't want to come back, you know," the mentor says instead. His voice is gruff, as if his voice has been worn away from shouting and crying a too sharp whiskey. His smile is ghost. "But no one would take my place." Ceardra nods, his hand tightly gripping the glass in his hand.

"Look at us." A laugh crosses the man's lips, harsh and fast, hands fisting and knuckles starting to crack. "Slaves to the Capitol."

The echo is far too loud. The glass breaks far too easily.

"I'm not," he hisses. The man grins, broken glass reflecting in his eyes, the moonlight sneaking in.

"Oh, but we _are_."

.

The next morning, the girl asks about tactics.

"I told you," he says impatiently. "You need to go to weapon training."

"But what about sponsors?" she tries again.

"No sponsors!" he shouts. "Sponsors are for the weak. Lazy. Show them what you've got; earn it." She glares at him across the table, black eyes sharp, her mind whirring.

"I thought the point of you was to help us," she points to the boy sitting in the corner, his face gone pale. He laughs, "was to help us win."

"Fine," he snarls. "Winning is when you go down without a fight, and darling, you just won." He walks off and doesn't see them until after the interviews.

.

The boy goes to him the morning before the games, an impossibly small silhouette in the morning light. A blue hue surrounds him and he wants to vomit. His touch on his arm is light and his voice is small when he asks,

"Is there really no chance of us winning?"

The room is silent.

Then again, "I promised by friend, Dura, that I'd come back."

It feels as if there's no air in his lungs at all, perhaps no air in his entire body at all. His head spins, fingers scrunching bed sheets. His voice is almost apologetic. "Don't make promises you can't keep." The footsteps leaving his room sound like a death march.

.

_What's the likelihood of your tribute befriending the son of your brother that you tried to forget existed?_ he thinks, and for the first time in a year, he feels guilty, perhaps even scared.

_Look at the odds. _

He's so drunk that he barely registers that both of his tributes made it out of the Cornucopia alive. He celebrates with another drink anyway.

.

He goes with the District 3 escort, Lilia, to try and get sponsors. They walk into loud, colourful rooms with laughter and smiles and the smell of sweet alcohol on their breath, and flashes of blood and small, bony hands grabbling at trees or weapons too big for them blind him temporarily. He grits his teeth as Lilia tells lies about his tributes and they just shake their heads, reaching into their pockets to literally throw money on the table for District 2 or 4. He thinks of living on stale bread for most of his life and the delusions of dehydration, and he has to walk away and get a drink to calm himself down.

Finally, Lilia comes back to him, sighing heavily and saying, "It's just no use. We're not going to get sponsors. If only they'd just been better in the interviews –" he pushes her into the wall before she can finish, fingers wrapping tightly around her wrists.

"We're not done," he says. "We can help them live, like I did." She scoffs.

"That was a fluke, barely any betters made any money at all last year," she says, pushing him away from her. "I'll see you when you get back, and be warned; I'll have guards with me." He glares at her, knives digging into her back, until she disappears behind the doors once again.

He stays; putting on his most charming smile and asking in a fake Capitol accent if anyone would like to sponsor his tributes. They barely give him an answer, and with a slight jolt he realises that none of them recognise as the victor from last year. His fingers tingle.

Eventually, he migrates to the darkest corner of the room with a bottle of liquor, sipping at it continuously and feeling his anger fall to the bottom of his stomach along with it. Finally, he smashes it on the floor. The remaining Capitol residents don't even blink. He glares at the broken shards of glass on the floor, crystallised and distorting as he kneels down to pick the pieces up. Glinting. Sharp, too.

He grins then, waiting for it, half-concealed in darkness on his half of the room. Finally, one of them gets up, making their way along the narrow corridor that leads to the bathroom. He follows them, gently grabbing their hand just as they're about to turn a corner, holding a finger to his lips when they gasp.

"Hi," he says, smiling. "I was wondering, would you like to help sponsor the tributes of District 3?" She shakes her head exasperatedly, a bored expression on her face as she tries to pull her hand away. He turns his hand slightly, still gripping hers, so that her wrist is visible. Slowly, his other hand reaches into his pocket to pick up the shard of glass, leading it to her wrist.

"What are you – "

"Would you like to reconsider your decision?" he asks, pressing the sharp edge to her skin.

"You've got to be joking," she says, looking around quickly. "My answer is final. No. Let me go, the joke's gone far enough." He smiles, feeling skin start to break as he pushes the glass forward.

"No."

.

It's extremely easy to get the money, once you find all the pockets. Then it's only a matter of finding their codes and cards and getting the money from various accounts. There's barely any security at all.

By the end of the night, the people who lay in the room have very, very little money left. Not that they'd be needing it, anyway (the best part is that no one would even blink an eyelash at the almost empty accounts; lavish spending is merely part of Capitol life).

.

Lilia is almost happy to see him when he shows her the money, but quickly walks off muttering the words "insane" and "how did he do better than me?". He's too busy watching one of his tributes die of blood loss to really listen, the other one burning his hands on a flame thrower stuck in a tree, trying to work out the mechanics.

He sends the boy ointment and food and watches the girl get taken away by the hovercraft, a large pool of blood in her place. Turning his attention back to the boy, he wonders if he'll have enough money to get him through. Nightfall comes, a shining moon and stars just like his back home, and he sighs.

He's just falling into an alcohol induced sleep, bright red shining behind his eyelids, when Lilia comes back, shaking him awake. She pulls up a chair next to him and places a livid orange drink on the table roughly, shaking her head angrily.

"District 8 burnt all of their TVs when they saw their tributes die," she says irritably. "It's completely ruining the feel of the games for everyone else. The word "rebellion" is just such a horrible word, isn't it? They think they'll have to send in more Peacekeepers, you know. And if it gets too out of hand, they'll have to kill or whip them, and that takes time, and that means there'll be a shortage on clothes, won't there?" She sighs, taking a sip from her glass.

"Kill them," he says quietly. "That's that, isn't it?" Slowly, he turns back to his TV screen, eyes glued on his tribute sleeping in the tree. Then, a click, and a spark. He closes his eyes, and tries to remember the smell of burning metal, tries to connect that with home. He opens his eyes, sees a tree on fire, and watches his tribute burn; yellow, orange, red, blue.

.

The room is silent. Then,

"I'm never going to get promoted," she groans. He grits his teeth, looking at the ashes of the tree and the boy who should've been able to keep his promise.

"Which district were you last year?" he asks, his anger seeping into his voice no matter how hard he tries to keep it in.

"District 10," she sighs.

"Sounds like a promotion to me," he says, suddenly feeling the weight of the crown on his head. Even just the thought of it gives him a headache, the applause of an imaginary audience ringing in his ears. Loud, sweaty, his hands clammy. He thinks of blackened remains and wide eyes and wants to vomit. Lilia's high pitched voice breaks through his thoughts.

"Do you think you'll come back next year to mentor the next lot?" she asks, though it seems more out of boredom than actual curiosity.

"Why? Will you miss me?" he replies.

"I just thought next year they could have a chance."

.

He wonders if the lights in the Capitol ever go out. When he went on his victor's tour, he found that almost all of the districts looked the same as his: grey, dark, and uniform. Certainly, the career districts seemed shinier and sleeker, but never bright, and always lonely. The other ones always felt empty and hollow, dark like the grime that covered the factory workers skin.

Now, he looks over the Capitol from the window and he sees endless amounts of light, greens and blue and purples blurring into one another. It burns his eyes; the blue surrounding his house had been enough. He stares at the lights, willing them to go away, and they burn his eyes right back. He turns back, looking at the reflective surfaces all around him, and he wants to break them all. The glass in his hand is the first one to break, and the rest follow.

By the end, the room is dark, but he can still see rivers of blood trailing from his cut hands and arms, travelling down his pale skin, over his veins and down his hands, dripping to the floor. His whole body shakes in the dark. Slowly, light starts to filter in through the curtains, creating the dark silhouettes of an upturned table and pushed over couch, then passes over Lilia, her lips blue and the bruises covering her throat purple.

The room is golden when the blood on his hands and arms has dried; cracked.

.

The Peacekeepers (if you can even call them that) come for him on the train on back to District 3. They stop at District 2 for fuel, and he hears their footsteps before he sees them, reverberating off the metallic walls and right into his skull. His head fills empty; a space only for echoes and ghosts. He knocks his bottle of whiskey on the floor, watching it roll and empty its content on the carpet. The first Peacekeeper comes through and lunges at him.

Cearda finds his knife-throwing skills haven't fallen in the slightest; maybe it's a skill for life. The next one comes in and meets the same fate. Finally, the rest of them run in and he drops three matches to the floor, following the trail of alcohol and being urged on by the textures made in the blazing District 8; the tables handcrafted in District 7. He watches the Peacekeepers burn, not feeling anything at all, not even the heat.

(And he wants to say to tell them that this is what they deserve. That he's barely eighteen and he's sick of fighting for his life, and that a twelve year old boy met the same fate and didn't make a sound. He wants to tell them that they're so much older than him; that they had a chance. But he keeps his mouth shut and closes his eyes, trying to block everything out.)

He walks out of the room – possibly with some burns, he can't tell – and manages to get to the front of the train, and knocks the driver unconscious. He closes all the doors and makes them unlockable except from the inside, thinking he can still hear footsteps, maybe even machine guns and children's screams. The train speeds away, and he wonders how long he could ride it before they found it, and him inside. He remembers, of course, that it loops right back to the Capitol.

.

He may or may not try to crash the train on the way to District 3.

He arrives at night and shuts it down so the lights won't attract any unwanted attention. Then, he gets out and walks away, his footsteps barely making a sound. He walks along the streets, immediately hiding in corners or shadows at the sign of anyone. The factories are still working, pounding mechanisms working to the beat of his pulse and ticking inside his brain. He breathes. Nothing makes sense to him anymore.

He manages to not set off the security system, though his hands fumble with the key and handle. He's pleasantly surprised to find his house empty, dark and quiet. He can almost hear his own brain thinking (whirring; a repetitive, redundant sound). He walks up the stairs, back into his room, watching clouds form on his ceiling.

It takes three pills and two bottles of scotch to get him to sleep that night, and by then an electric storm is in his room, lightning cracked over his walls, thunder pounding in his ears, so loud in his head. If he closes his eyes, it's like he's back in the arena.

.

He hears voices below him. Footsteps, coming closer.

His knife is in his pocket and he's just managed to get out when he hears the tell-all click of a Peacekeeper stepping on _that_ spot.

That landmine was more powerful than he expected; the remnants of his house smoke for the rest of the day. He's gone by then, of course.

.

He knows what do but he doesn't know where to go; there are so many ways to lose but only one way to win. His next actions are mechanical, almost second nature: he slits the throat of a factory worker and steals their uniform, a spare Peacekeeper one in his pack just in case. Distantly, he hears a voice in his head. Perhaps it's his mother, or his brother or his nephew or maybe even a younger version of him, eyes filled with the reflections of the circuits and wires in front of him.

_Death doesn't solve anything_.

He wants to scream, wants to scream because he knows that. If it did he wouldn't be running from dead children that only live inside the nightmares of his mind, running from his own government. He thinks, perhaps, that he better than anyone knows the power of death, at least. The Capitol takes twenty four children each year to remind everyone of that. How many people have died, he wonders. How many residents of the Capitol would have to die for the president to listen, then?

He starts to run again, picturing the layout of his district: a poor, weak region surrounded by strong and wealthy career districts. Underestimated. He remembers this, looking at the dark sky with clouds instead of a perfect moon and countless stars, and keeps walking on through the night. He imagines that the distant sound of a hovercraft is the sound of the ocean instead.

.

Somehow, he manages to make it the edge of District 4 where he changes his clothes into that of a Peacekeeper's. He's just thinking of a way to cross the border without being caught when the sound of smashing glass sounds, turning the guarding Peacekeepers heads away to glance at a trail of smoke rising into the air. 3, 2, 1, and they run. He's only just stepped into the district when someone grasps him tightly on the arm, pulling him away from the town square and into a shining Justice building.

His hand has already found its way to his back pocket, gripping the handle of the knife tightly. He turns around, ready to strike when he hears a laugh, soft yet harsh, the sound similar to waves crashing against a rock and being pulled away again. His eyes start to adjust to the darkness and he sees a woman, her eyes seemingly the only alive thing about her.

"You've been in the sky a lot, you know," she says. He supposes that's what he gets for not appearing in the sky before. An anthem starts to play automatically in his head.

"If you recognise me," he says, his voice thick. "What are you going to do with me?" She smiles slightly, stepping forward and reaching out for his hand holding the knife, grasping it tightly before he can jolt away, her hands surprisingly strong and coarse like fishnets.

"A favour," is all she says. Suddenly he remembers her; the victor a couple of years before, standing deathly still as blood ran down her arms, the announcer's voice seeming to go unnoticed. He looks at her again, and smells blood and salt all at once. Slowly, she starts to bring the knife towards her, pressing the tip to the bottom of her chin. His jaw tightens.

"No," he answers shortly.

"They'll find you, then," she says. "They'll drag it out, long and slow. You know it. They hate you. You're everything you're not supposed to be. _Traitorous_."

"So are you," he says. "You're not supposed to die. They'll find me anyway and you know it."

"Yes," she replies, still smiling. "And they'll do it without thought or guilt. Maybe you'll even get lucky; a single bullet to the head. Just do one more thing, kill one more person who isn't supposed to die and is still too scared to bring dishonour to her home." She lets go of his hand.

The knife goes in quickly and she dies smiling.

.

He writes _I will not die a slave to the Capitol _on the wall in her blood and waits. When they find him, he's curled in on himself and he can't tell whether the bright flashes of colour are lights from circuits or people from the Capitol or the colour of dead eyes. They whip him anyway – charge him with murder of Capitol members and other tributes and treason and whip him in front of everyone.

He doesn't know how many lashes he gets but all he can think is whether this is the worst of it or whether that's yet to come. His back is torn to shreds, blood running down his sides and seeming to fill his mouth. The worst part of it the feeling of everyone watching him, though; the eyes of every single member of the Capitol, of every single district drives him insane as they burn holes into the back of his head, drive themselves deep into his brain. Finally, he screams and breaks free of his constraints and manages to break a Peacekeeper's neck and whip another one across the face before he's pulled off and sedated.

It's the most peaceful sleep of his life: there's only blackness resting against his eyelids. He is conscious of nothing.

.

They take him to the area between District 3 and District 4 to kill him, a no man's land with no rules and no owner's (except, everything belongs to the Capitol. Everything comes back to the Capitol). They push him to the ground and place a gun to his head and ask,

"Did you really think we wouldn't find you?"

"No," he answers.

"Did you think you'd win, then?" They laugh, of course. The Capitol laughs and the districts smile and he wonders if they'll ever figure out why.

"Yes," he breathes.

.

They don't bury him.

(But everyone except the Capitol forgets him.)


End file.
